Children's books      08.12.2023

Cloud in pants read analysis. "cloud in pants" analysis of the poem. "Down with your system!"

In this article we will talk about one of Mayakovsky’s poems and analyze it. “Cloud in Pants” is a work, the idea of ​​which appeared to Vladimir Vladimirovich in 1914. At first it was called "The Thirteenth Apostle". The young poet fell in love with Denisova Maria Alexandrovna. However, this love was unhappy. Mayakovsky embodied the bitterness of his experiences in poetry. The poem was completely completed in 1915, in the summer. We will analyze it in parts, sequentially.

"Cloud in pants" (Mayakovsky). Composition of the work

This work consists of an introduction and the following four parts. Each of them implements a private, specific idea. Their essence was defined by Vladimir Vladimirovich himself in the preface to the second edition of the work, which was published a little later. These are the “four cries”: “down with your love”, “down with your religion”, “down with your system”, “down with your art”. We will talk about each of them in more detail during the analysis. “A Cloud in Pants” is a poem that is very interesting to analyze.

Issues and topics

A multi-problem and multi-themed work - "Cloud in Pants". The theme of the poet and the crowd is already stated in the introduction. The main character is contrasted with the faceless, inert human mass. The “handsome, twenty-two-year-old” lyrical hero contrasts with the world of low images and things. These are worn out, “like a proverb” women; "stayed" like a hospital, men. It’s interesting that if the crowd remains unchanged, the lyrical hero changes before our eyes. He is sometimes sharp and rude, “impudent and caustic”, sometimes vulnerable, relaxed, “impeccably gentle” - “a cloud in his pants”, not a man. Thus, the work clarifies the meaning of such an unusual name, which, by the way, is very characteristic of the work of Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky, who loved to use original, vivid images and apt expressions.

First part of the poem

According to the author's plan, the first part contains the first cry: “Down with your love.” We can say that the theme of love is central to the entire work. In addition to the first section, part four is also devoted to it, as our analysis shows.

“A Cloud in Pants” opens with tense anticipation: the lyrical hero is waiting to meet Maria. It is so painful that it seems to him that the candelabra are “neighing” and “laughing” at his back, the doors are “caressing”, midnight is “cutting” with a knife, the rain is grimacing, etc. Time passes endlessly and painfully. The extended metaphor about the twelfth hour conveys the depth of suffering of the waiter. Mayakovsky writes that the twelfth hour fell like “the head of an executed man” from the block.

This is not just a fresh metaphor used by Vladimir Vladimirovich, as our analysis shows. Mayakovsky filled “A Cloud in Pants” with deep inner content: the intensity of passions in the hero’s soul is so high that the ordinary passage of time seems hopeless to him. It is perceived as physical death. The hero “writhes,” “moans,” and soon he will “tear his mouth out” with a scream.

Tragic news

Finally, the girl appears and tells him that she is getting married soon. The poet compares the deafening and harshness of this news with another of his poems called “Nate.” He likens the theft of Mary to the theft of the famous “La Gioconda” from the Louvre, and himself to the lost Pompeii.

At the same time, one is struck by the almost inhuman calmness and composure with which the lyrical hero outwardly perceives this tragic news. He says he is “calm,” but compares this equanimity to “the pulse of a dead man.” Such a comparison means an irrevocably, finally dead hope for reciprocity.

Development of the theme of love in the second part

The theme of love in the second part of this poem receives a new solution. This should certainly be noted when analyzing the poem “Cloud in Pants”. In the second part, Mayakovsky talks about love lyrics, which prevailed in poetry contemporary with Vladimir Vladimirovich. She is only concerned with singing in poetry “the flower under the dew,” and “love,” and “the young lady.” These topics are vulgar and petty, and the poets, “with rhymes,” “boil” the “brew” out of nightingales and love. At the same time, they are not at all concerned about human suffering. Poets are afraid of the street crowd, like “leprosy,” and consciously rush away from the street. However, the people of the city, in the opinion of the lyrical hero, are purer than the “Venetian blue sky” washed by the sun and seas.

The poet contrasts the authentic, the real, with non-viable art, and himself with the screeching “poetics”.

The third part of the poem

Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky argued in one of his articles that the poetry of modernity is the poetry of struggle. This journalistic formula received artistic expression in the work that interests us. It continues to develop in the next, third part of such a work as the poem “Cloud in Pants,” which we are analyzing. Vladimir Vladimirovich considered Severyanin’s work to be inappropriate for modern requirements. Therefore, an unpleasant portrait of this author, his “drunk face” is introduced into the poem. According to the lyrical hero, any author should be concerned not with the elegance of his creations, but primarily with the power of their impact on readers.

Development of the theme of love in the third part of the poem "Cloud in Pants"

A brief analysis of the third part of the poem is as follows. Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky in it rises to the denial of the cruel and inhumane system that, in his opinion, prevailed in our country at that time. The life of “fat” people is unacceptable to him. The theme of love here takes a new facet in the poem. The author reproduces a parody of love - perversion, debauchery, lust. The whole earth appears as a woman, who is depicted as Rothschild’s “mistress” - “fat.” True love is opposed to lust.

"Down with your system!"

The existing system gives rise to “massacres”, executions, murders, wars. Such a device is accompanied by “human chaos,” devastation, betrayal, and robbery. It creates wards of insane asylums and leper colonies-prisons in which prisoners languish. This society is dirty and corrupt. That is why the poet calls “down with your system!” However, Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky does not simply throw this slogan-cry into the crowd. He calls for open struggle among the people of the city, calling for the rise of “bloody carcasses.” The hero, becoming the “thirteenth apostle,” confronts the masters of life, the powerful of this world.

The main theme of the fourth part

The analysis of the poem "Cloud in Pants" proceeds to the description of the fourth part. The theme of God becomes the leading one in it. It was prepared by the previous ones, which indicate hostility with God, who watches with indifference the suffering of people. The poet enters into an open war with him, he denies his omnipotence, omnipotence, omniscience. The hero (“tiny little god”) even resorts to insult and takes out a shoe knife to cut it open.

The main accusation that is thrown at God is that he did not care about happiness in love, about being able to kiss “without pain.” Once again, as at the beginning of the work, the lyrical hero turns to Mary. Again, oaths, and tenderness, and imperious demands, and groans, and reproaches, and pleas. However, the poet hopes in vain for reciprocity. All that remains for him is a bleeding heart. He carries it, just as a dog carries a paw that has been “run over by a train.”

The ending of the poem

The finale of the poem is a picture of cosmic scales and heights, endless spaces. The hostile sky rises, the ominous stars shine. The poet waits for the sky before him to take off its hat in response to the challenge. However, the Universe sleeps with its “paw with pincers of stars” on its huge ear.

This is the analysis of the work “Cloud in Pants”. We carried it out sequentially, based on the text of the poem. We hope you find this information useful. The analysis of the verse “Cloud in Pants” can be supplemented by including your own thoughts and observations. Mayakovsky is a very unique and curious poet, who is usually studied with great interest even by schoolchildren.

Mayakovsky, in the poem “A Cloud in Pants,” which we are analyzing, devoted a special place to the theme of betrayal, which begins with Maria and extends to other areas: he sees life as completely different, she smiles with her rotten grin, and he doesn’t want to stay there at all , where everyone is only interested in the surroundings.

It is striking that Mayakovsky’s poems are full of variety and he generously uses expressions and words that become new to the reader, although they are derived from ordinary sayings that everyone knows. The color is created through vivid images and double meanings, which come to life under the thoughts of the readers. If you look at the triptych used in the poem, you can find the word “mocking,” which expresses aggression towards the one who is reading, and this is none other than a representative of the bourgeoisie.

"Down with your art"

Let's continue the analysis of the poem "Cloud in Pants", namely the second part. First, the author wants to overthrow those who became idols in art and who were extolled at the time when Mayakovsky wrote the poem. To overthrow these empty idols, the poet explains that only pain can give birth to real art, and that everyone can start creating and see themselves as the main creator.

Mayakovsky here uses interesting complex adjectives; you can find “cry-lipped” and “golden-mouthed”. Or take “newborn” for example: here the author composed it from two others, bringing it closer in meaning to renewal and calling for action.

"Down with your system"

It is no secret that Mayakovsky spoke negatively about the political system, which just took shape during the author’s heyday as a poet. It is very appropriate that with words such as “curse”, “love”, “thing” the poet emphasizes one or another side of the weakness and stupidity of the regime. For example, you can think about belonging to things or about the verb “to break through,” with which Mayakovsky emphasizes decisive action, perseverance and speed.

"Down with your religion"

The fourth part is practically free from such complex newly formed words, because the poet here simply conveys the specifics: no matter how he calls to love Mary, she rejects him, and then the poet is angry with God. He believes that one cannot rely on religion, given its corruption, laziness, deceit and other vices.

Although Mayakovsky, and this is clearly visible in the analysis of the poem “Cloud in Pants,” brings forward a revolutionary idea, it is clear that thoughts about pain, passion and experiences are specific and dynamic. They also received a lot of attention. Of course, the poem we analyzed has become the property of Russian literature; She perfectly and intelligibly expressed the revolutionary sentiments of the Mayakovsky era.

Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky spent about a year on this poem and endowed his hero with all his character traits. The hero of his poem is lyrical, he knows how to love and wants to be loved. At the very beginning of the work, the hero is waiting for his beloved girl, and time drags on for so long that it seems to him that everything is mocking him. Even the raindrops seem to dance in front of him and make faces, he does not have enough patience, he so wants to see his beloved.

When the long-awaited meeting took place, the hero was not happy about it. A hole forms in his chest, which he calls the pulse of a dead man. His beloved Maria, coming to him, told him that she would soon get married, thereby breaking the young man’s heart. The young guy says that he is so afraid to forget the girl’s name, just as the poet is afraid to forget about writing his works. Having become completely disillusioned with love, the young man goes into politics.

And then a whirlwind of described people started spinning, ridiculing the authorities, historical figures and a thoughtless crowd that follows who knows who and where. The young man says that all these pathetic and petty people are incapable of love and have no idea what it is. Each of them confuses love with lust and confuses this concept with dirt. As a result, the young man becomes disillusioned with God and stops believing. He says that the Creator did not see his heart wound and did not understand the disappointment and could not help him.

The young man does not stop thinking about Maria, he seems to be in agony and screams loudly that it is so painful and unpleasant for him to realize that he was abandoned. The young man understands that this is useless and that everything has collapsed, so he wants the revolution to affect everything.

At first the poem was called “The Thirteenth Apostle,” but the name had to be changed because Mayakovsky did not want to go to hard labor and called the poem “Cloud in Pants.” Where the writer's trousers act like rough fabric, this is how he expressed the external calm of the hero of his poem. When Maria announced their separation, the young man outwardly remained unperturbed. The cloud in the title represents the inner world of the young man. While remaining calm outwardly, inside the young man was going crazy, he felt very bitter and bad. Thus, a cloud is a light and weightless thing that is inside a person.

Mayakovsky wanted to write that an outwardly strong and self-confident man, having experienced such a feeling as love, becomes light and weightless like a cloud. Throughout the entire poem, the young man struggles with himself, either losing faith in God or unwillingness to forget Mary. Mayakovsky described a man who, despite all his external calm, was very worried inside.

Analysis of the poem Cloud in Mayakovsky's pants with quotes

Initially, the poem had a different title, “The Thirteen Apostles.” Mayakovsky saw himself as the thirteenth apostle. But the censor did not let it through. And the name had to be changed. The poet manages to combine the incompatible. Lightness, romanticism and everyday aspects of everyday life.

He writes that “there will be not a man, but a cloud in his pants.” It was precisely at that time that pants were identified with the strong half of humanity. Women did not wear trousers. The poem closely intertwines the love torment of the protagonist along with politics. By this the poet means himself.

What can you do if your beloved girl refuses? You need to plunge headlong into work or politics. Love is a golden staircase without railings and you can fly off from there at any moment. And falling always hurts so much.

The poet passionately denounces the state machine, the people in power. He naively thinks that this will give him oblivion. But it was not there. In desperation, he turns to God. But he cannot help him either. The poet in his hearts calls him a “dropout.” Love is not so easy to tear out of the heart and mind. Along with the feelings, that old world collapsed. Now Mayakovsky is ready to accept the revolution.

The poem consists of four parts, which are united by a single plot and meaning. Each part is a separate topic. Even at the beginning, the poet declares that he is an opponent of love, art, order and religion. One part - one negation.

Part one – “Down with love.” The girl he loved rejected him. The second part is about the fact that literature and creative thought will perish in a bourgeois society. But only a revolution can save them. The third and fourth parts are a protest against the system and religion.

The main character, despite his denial of everything and his rebellious habits, can still be considered gentle and lyrical. The poet was not afraid to publicly declare: “Down with your system!” And how was he not sent to camps or to Kolyma for such lines? He believes that the revolutionary people, dressed in identical gray overcoats, breed wars and violence. Brave claim!

The main female character's name is Maria. It was not by chance that the poet gave her this biblical name. He hints that she rejected him, betrayed him, like Judas, who betrayed Christ. She exchanged a poor poet for a rich man for a French dress. The poet could only dress her in tobacco smoke. But can a woman be condemned for this? Nowadays many girls do this. “It’s heaven in the hut with my darling, if my darling ... attache.”

In matters of the heart, as in matters of the world, alas, God is not a helper. You must believe only in your own strength - the main idea of ​​​​the poem. The poet's protest is a reaction to the environment. And love experiences may have been invented to confuse the censors.

Option with quotes

Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky wrote his tetraptych “Cloud in Pants” at the beginning of the First World War or the Great War, as it is called in Western Europe. But the Cubo-Futurists, whose leader Mayakovsky considered himself to be, the Ego-Futurists (Igor Severyanin), and other representatives of the poetic bohemia, had little interest in her. They were worried about completely different problems. A bright, very unusual, clearly revolutionary poem, the poem was not published under its original title “The Thirteenth Apostle.” For this name, Mayakovsky could be sent to prison again, and the poet chose a name that would mean nothing to anyone. But the poem itself is the cry of the poet’s soul, or rather four cries. Four cries of "Down."

In the preface he directly states the concept of the poem. “Down with your love, art, system, religion!” This is exactly what Mayakovsky’s hero is screaming about. The poem begins in lyrical tones, although the hero’s first cry is: “Down with your love.” We learn about his unrequited feelings for Mary, torment and search for answers to insoluble questions. The theme of love is the leading one in the poem. It is present in one form or another in every part of it. “Down with your art” is the slogan of the second part of the poem. The author believes that art is being stifled on purpose and only a revolution will give it new meaning and limitlessly expand its horizons (how wrong he was).

At that time, the entire thinking Russian society lived in anticipation of revolution. Mayakovsky did not stand out in this row. “Down with your system” is the poet’s obligatory opposition of himself to the entire “rotten” bourgeois society. The poet was not spared the crisis of religion, which had serious consequences at the beginning of the last century. Many people were engaged in God-seeking, including Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy. The revolutionaries, among whom Mayakovsky spent a lot of time, also denied God and divine providence. Therefore, it was impossible to do without the hero’s cry: “Down with your religion.” Moreover, the beloved girl not only betrays the hero, but actually “sells” him. Just like Judas Iscariot.

In general, this poem is the work of the real Vladimir Mayakovsky. His pressure, his voice, his syllable is not similar to anyone else. Behind the ostentatious nihilism, tender feelings are revealed, without any selfishness. The hero of the poem, like its author, did everything for real, including loving and hating. “Community-love” and “Community-hate” are from him and about him.

Analysis of the poem Cloud in Pants according to plan

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Date of writing: Date of first publication: in Wikisource

Publication history

Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky began working on the poem in the first half of 1914, as he himself testifies in his autobiography “I Myself”: “ The beginning of the 14th year. I feel mastery. I can master the topic. Close. I pose a question about the topic. About revolutionary. I'm thinking about "Cloud in Pants"" According to the testimony of Vladimir Mayakovsky’s friends, the poet was inspired to write the first chapter of the poem by a romantic episode during the futurists’ trip to Russia. In Odessa, where they performed from January 16 to 19, 1914, he met the beauty, Maria Denisova, with whom he fell in love. Despite her sympathy for the poet, the girl refused to enter into a close relationship with him. Work on the poem was completed in July 1915 in Kuokkala (now Repino near St. Petersburg).

Initially it was called “The Thirteenth Apostle,” but at the request of the tsarist censorship the name was changed by the poet to “Cloud in Pants.” Excerpts from the prologue and the 4th part of the work were published in the collection “Sagittarius” back in February 1915. Several stanzas from parts 2 and 3 were quoted by the author in his article “About the different Mayakovskys,” published in the “Journal of Journals” in August 1915. In both cases, the poem was called a “tragedy” by Vladimir Mayakovsky. Later, in a separate publication, he gave it the subtitle “tetraptych,” indicating that compositionally it consists of four parts.

The first edition of the poem, with a huge number of censored notes, was published by Osip Brik in September 1915. In 1916, it was reprinted by the Parus publishing house in the collection “Simple as Mooing,” also with a significant number of censorship removals. After the February Revolution in Russia, the magazine “New Satyricon” in March 1917 published excerpts of the poem that had not been previously censored under the author’s title “Restoring.”

For the first time, the complete poem “Cloud in Pants” was published at the beginning of 1918 in Moscow by the ASIS publishing house (Association of Socialist Art).

Structure

In the preface to the first complete edition of the poem in 1918, Vladimir Mayakovsky wrote: “ “Cloud in Pants” (the first name “The Thirteenth Apostle” has been crossed out by censorship. I’m not restoring it. I’ve gotten used to it) I consider it a catechism of today’s art; “Down with your love”, “Down with your art”, “Down with your system”, “Down with your religion” - four cries of four parts" The poem has a short introduction.

Criticism

The poem is given great originality by its metaphorical richness; almost every line is metaphorical. An example of a materialized metaphor is the line “the fire of the heart” of the poet, which is extinguished by firefighters...
Muratova Ksenia Dmitrievna.

In “The Cloud...” one of the main features of Mayakovsky’s thinking is visible: the ability for powerful associative condensations of themes, images, and plots that are very distant from each other. What do Severyanin, Bismarck and the “carcasses of meadowsweet” have in common? What do they have to do with a suffering, rejected lover?..
Bavin Sergey Pavlovich.

Blasphemy, aggressive language, street rudeness and deliberate anti-aestheticism reveal... the rebellious element of the poem. And although Mayakovsky, blaspheming, exalts man, the elements overwhelm him.
Mikhailov Alexander Alekseevich.

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Notes

Literature

  • / USSR Academy of Sciences. Institute of World Lit. them. A. M. Gorky. - M.: State. art publishing house lit., 1955-1961.
  • Mayakovsky V.V. Complete works: In 13 volumes./ T.1. [Poems, tragedy, poems and articles of 1912-1917] / Prepared by. text and notes V. A. Katanyan; Ed. Z. Paperny. - M.: State. art publishing house lit., 1955. - 464 p.

Links

  • Vladimir Mayakovsky.. Ruslit.traumlibrary.net. .

see also

  • poem War and Peace

Excerpt characterizing Cloud in Pants

Just as in Tilsit, Rostov did not allow himself to doubt whether what was recognized by everyone as good was good, so now, after a short but sincere struggle between an attempt to arrange his life according to his own mind and humble submission to circumstances, he chose the latter and left himself to the power that (he felt) irresistibly attracted him somewhere. He knew that, having promised Sonya, expressing his feelings to Princess Marya would be what he called meanness. And he knew that he would never do anything mean. But he also knew (and not that he knew, but in the depths of his soul he felt) that, now surrendering to the power of circumstances and the people who led him, he not only was not doing anything bad, but was doing something very, very important, such important, something he had never done before in his life.
After his meeting with Princess Marya, although his way of life outwardly remained the same, all his former pleasures lost their charm for him, and he often thought about Princess Marya; but he never thought about her the way he, without exception, thought about all the young ladies he met in the world, not the way he had long and once thought with delight about Sonya. Like almost every honest young man, he thought of all the young ladies as a future wife, tried on in his imagination all the conditions of married life: a white hood, a wife at the samovar, his wife’s carriage, children, maman and papa, their relationship with her etc., etc., and these ideas of the future gave him pleasure; but when he thought about Princess Marya, with whom he was matched, he could never imagine anything from his future married life. Even if he tried, everything came out awkward and false. He just felt creepy.

The terrible news about the Battle of Borodino, about our losses in killed and wounded, and even more terrible news about the loss of Moscow were received in Voronezh in mid-September. Princess Marya, having learned only from the newspapers about her brother’s wound and not having any definite information about him, got ready to go look for Prince Andrei, as Nikolai heard (he himself had not seen her).
Having received the news of the Battle of Borodino and the abandonment of Moscow, Rostov did not so much feel despair, anger or revenge and similar feelings, but he suddenly felt bored, annoyed in Voronezh, everything seemed ashamed and awkward. All the conversations he heard seemed feigned to him; he did not know how to judge all this, and felt that only in the regiment would everything become clear to him again. He was in a hurry to complete the purchase of horses and often unfairly became heated with his servant and sergeant.
A few days before the departure of Rostov, a prayer service was scheduled in the cathedral on the occasion of the victory won by the Russian troops, and Nicholas went to mass. He stood somewhat behind the governor and with official sedateness, reflecting on a wide variety of subjects, endured his service. When the prayer service ended, the governor’s wife called him to her.
-Have you seen the princess? - she said, pointing with her head to the lady in black standing behind the choir.
Nikolai immediately recognized Princess Marya not so much by her profile, which was visible from under her hat, but by the feeling of caution, fear and pity that immediately overwhelmed him. Princess Marya, obviously lost in her thoughts, was making the last crosses before leaving the church.
Nikolai looked at her face in surprise. It was the same face that he had seen before, the same general expression of subtle, inner, spiritual work was in it; but now it was illuminated in a completely different way. There was a touching expression of sadness, prayer and hope on him. As had happened before with Nikolai in her presence, he, without waiting for the governor’s wife’s advice to approach her, without asking himself whether his address to her here in church would be good, decent or not, he approached her and said that he had heard about her grief and sympathizes with him with all my heart. As soon as she heard his voice, suddenly a bright light lit up in her face, illuminating her sadness and joy at the same time.
“I wanted to tell you one thing, princess,” said Rostov, “that if Prince Andrei Nikolaevich were not alive, then as a regimental commander, this would now be announced in the newspapers.”
The princess looked at him, not understanding his words, but rejoicing at the expression of sympathetic suffering that was in his face.
“And I know so many examples that a wound from a shrapnel (the newspapers say a grenade) can be either fatal immediately, or, on the contrary, very light,” said Nikolai. – We must hope for the best, and I’m sure...
Princess Marya interrupted him.
“Oh, that would be so terrible...” she began and, without finishing from excitement, with a graceful movement (like everything she did in front of him), bowing her head and looking at him gratefully, she followed her aunt.
In the evening of that day, Nikolai did not go anywhere to visit and stayed at home in order to settle some scores with the horse sellers. When he finished his business, it was already too late to go anywhere, but it was still too early to go to bed, and Nikolai walked up and down the room alone for a long time, pondering his life, which rarely happened to him.
Princess Marya made a pleasant impression on him near Smolensk. The fact that he met her then in such special conditions, and the fact that it was her at one time that his mother pointed out to him as a rich match, made him pay special attention to her. In Voronezh, during his visit, the impression was not only pleasant, but strong. Nikolai was amazed at the special, moral beauty that he noticed in her this time. However, he was about to leave, and it did not occur to him to regret that by leaving Voronezh, he would be deprived of the opportunity to see the princess. But the current meeting with Princess Marya in the church (Nicholas felt it) sank deeper into his heart than he foresaw, and deeper than he desired for his peace of mind. This pale, thin, sad face, this radiant look, these quiet, graceful movements and most importantly - this deep and tender sadness, expressed in all her features, disturbed him and demanded his participation. Rostov could not stand to see in men the expression of a higher, spiritual life (that’s why he did not like Prince Andrei), he contemptuously called it philosophy, dreaminess; but in Princess Marya, precisely in this sadness, which showed the full depth of this spiritual world alien to Nicholas, he felt an irresistible attraction.

The purpose of the lesson: show the logic of development of the idea of ​​the work.

Methodical techniques: analytical reading of the poem.

During the classes.

I. Checking homework.

Reading and discussion of selected poems.

II. Teacher's word

From his earliest poems, Mayakovsky was characterized by excessive lyrical openness, reckless inner openness. There is practically no distance between the specific lyrical “I” of the poet and his lyrical hero. The lyrical experiences are so intense that, no matter what he writes about, a sharp lyrical, individual intonation permeates the fabric of his poetry. This is also his first poem with the mysterious and shocking title “A Cloud in Pants” (1915). Mayakovsky himself defined it as a “tetraptych”, the meaning of the four parts of which is “down with your love”, “down with your art”, “down with your system”, “down with your religion”.

III. Analytical conversation

What associations reminiscences does this definition of Mayakovsky evoke?

(The categorical nature of the lyrical hero’s judgments and statements recalls the uncompromising nihilism, rebellion of Bazarov. Let us remember the subject of disputes between Bazarov and Kirsanov - it practically coincides with what Mayakovsky writes about.)

What image unites the parts of the poem?

(The parts of the poem are connected by the leading image - the lyrical “I”.)

In what ways is he portrayed?

(The main image technique is antithesis . The opposition to the entire society in the prologue of the poem grows to the opposition to the entire universe at the end. This is not just a dispute, it is a daring challenge, so characteristic of the work of early Mayakovsky (remember the poems “Here!”, “To You!”):

Your thought
dreaming on a softened brain,
like an overweight lackey on a greasy couch,
I will tease about the bloody flap of the heart,
I mock him to my heart's content, impudent and caustic. ("Cloud in Pants", intro)

Only an incredibly powerful personality can resist anything and everything and not break. Hence the next trick - hyperbolization image: “Having enlarged the world with the power of my voice, / I walk, handsome, / twenty-two years old”; hyperbole can be combined with a comparison: “like the sky, changing tones.” The range of this personality is poles: “mad” - “impeccably gentle, / not a man, but a cloud in his pants!” This is how the meaning of the title of the poem manifests itself. This is self-irony, but the main feeling that captured the hero is indicated: “tenderness.” How does it fit in with the rebellious element of the poem?

How is love portrayed in the poem?

First part- an extremely frank story about love. The reality of what is happening is consciously emphasized: “It was, / was in Odessa.” Love does not transform, but distorts the “block” of a person: “They couldn’t recognize me now: / the sinewy hulk / groans, / writhes.” It turns out that this “block” “wants a lot.” “Much” is actually very simple and human:

After all, it doesn’t matter to yourself
and the fact that it is bronze,
and that the heart is a cold piece of iron.
At night I want my own ringing
hide in something soft
into women's.

The love of this “hulk” should be a “small, humble darling.” Why? The community is exceptional, there is no other. The affectionate neologism “liubenochek,” reminiscent of “baby,” emphasizes the strength of feeling and touching tenderness. The hero is at the limit of feeling, every minute, hour of waiting for his beloved is agony. And as a result of suffering - execution: “The twelfth hour fell, / like the head of an executed man falling from the block.” Nerves are exposed and frayed. The metaphor is realized “Nerves / big, / small, / many! - / they are jumping madly, / and already / their legs are giving way from their nerves!”

Finally, the heroine appears. The conversation is not about love and dislike. The effect on the lyrical hero of the words of his beloved is conveyed by the grinding sound recording:

You came in
sharp, like “here!”
mucha suede gloves,
said:
"You know -
I'm getting married".

What techniques are used to convey the hero’s psychological state?

The psychological state of the hero is conveyed very strongly - through his external calm: “See - how calm he is! / Like the pulse of a dead man”; “and the worst thing / you saw was my face / when / I was absolutely calm?” Internal suffering, the tornness of the soul are emphasized by transference (enzhanbeman): you need to restrain yourself, and therefore speak clearly, slowly, measuredly.

“The fire of the heart” burns the hero: “I’ll jump out! I'll jump out! I'll jump out! I'll jump out! / Collapsed. / You won’t jump out of your heart!” Here the phraseology “the heart jumps out of the chest” is turned inside out. The catastrophe that befell the hero is comparable to world catastrophes: “The last cry, / even / that I’m burning, will groan for centuries!”

What is the logic of development of the poem in the second part?

The tragedy of love is experienced by the poet. It's logical that The second part- about the relationship between the hero and art. The part begins with the hero’s decisive statement: “I put “nihil” (“nothing”, lat.) over everything that has been done. The hero denies the “tormented”, sluggish art, which is done like this: “before it begins to sing, / they walk for a long time, limp from fermentation, / and quietly flounder in the mud of the heart / the stupid roach of the imagination.” “Boiling” “some kind of brew out of love and nightingales” is not for him. These “loves” - “nightingales” - are not for the street, which “writhes tongueless.” Bourgeoisism and philistinism filled the city, crushing living words with their carcasses. The hero shouts, calling for a rebellion against “those sucked with a free app / to every double bed”: “We ourselves are the creators in the burning hymn!” This is a hymn to living life, which is placed above the “I”:

I,
golden-mouthed,
whose every word
newborn soul,
birthday body
I tell you:
the smallest speck of living dust
more valuable than anything I will do and have done!
(Please note neologisms Mayakovsky).

“Screaming-lipped Zarathustra” (Nietzschean motifs are generally strong in the early Mayakovsky), speaking about the coming “in the crown of thorns of revolutions” “the year of sixteen,” clearly defines his role:

And I am your forerunner!
I am where the pain is, everywhere;
on every tear drop
crucified himself on the cross.

How do you understand these words?

Here the hero already identifies himself with God himself. He is ready for self-sacrifice: “I will pull out the soul, / trample it, / so that it’s big! - / and I will give the bloody one as a banner.” This is the goal and purpose of poetry and the poet, worthy of the “hulk” of the hero’s personality.

How is this goal illustrated in Part Three?

The thought of the poem logically moves to those who are to be led under this “banner” made from the hero’s “trampled soul”:

From you,
who were wet with love,
from which
for centuries a tear has flowed,
I'll leave
sun monocle
I’ll insert it into the wide open eye.

There is vulgarity, mediocrity, ugliness all around. The hero is sure: “Today / we must / use brass knuckles / to cut the world into the skull!” Where are the “geniuses” recognized by humanity? The following fate is destined for them: “I will lead Napoleon on a chain like a pug.” This vulgar world must be destroyed at all costs:

Take your hands out of your trousers -
take a stone, a knife or a bomb,
and if he has no hands -
come and fight with your forehead!
Go, you hungry ones,

Sweaty,
humble,
soured in flea-filled dirt!
Go!
Mondays and Tuesdays
Let's paint it with blood for the holidays!

The lyrical hero himself takes on the role of the “thirteenth apostle.” With God he is already easily: “maybe Jesus Christ is sniffing / my soul’s forget-me-nots.” -

How does the lyrical love theme manifest itself in the fourth movement? How does it change?

From global plans to remake the world, the hero returns to thoughts about his beloved. However, he did not escape these thoughts; they were only sublimated in a powerful creative attempt to challenge the entire universe. The name "Maria" is shouted repeatedly. This is a plea for love. And the hero becomes submissive, almost humiliated, “just a man”: “and I am all meat, / I am all man - I simply ask for your body, / as Christians ask - “give us this day our daily bread.” The beloved replaces everything, she is necessary, like “daily bread.” The poet speaks of his “word born in agony”: it is “equal in greatness to God.” This, of course, is blasphemy, gradually developing into rebellion against God.

The refusal of his beloved provokes this rebellion of the suffering and desperate hero. At first he is simply familiar:

Listen, Mister God!
Aren't you bored?
Into the cloudy jelly
Soak your sore eyes every day?

Then familiarity goes beyond all boundaries: the hero is already on first name terms with God, openly rude to him:

Shaking your head, curly?
Will you raise your gray eyebrow?
You think -
this,
behind you, winged one,
knows what love is?

The main accusation against God is not the incorrect structure of the world, not social injustice. The imperfection of the world is “why didn’t you invent / so that it would be painless / to kiss, kiss, kiss?!” The hero’s despair reaches the point of frenzy, rage, almost madness, he shouts out terrible blasphemies, the elements overwhelm him:

I thought you were an all-powerful god,
And you are a dropout, tiny god.
You see I'm bending over
Because of the boot
I take out a shoe knife.
Winged scoundrels!
Hang out in paradise!
Ruffle your feathers in frightened shaking!
I will open you, smelling of incense
From here to Alaska!
Let me in!
Can't stop me.

And suddenly he humbles himself: “Hey, you! / Sky! / Take off your hat! / I'm coming! (he is already speaking with the sky again, although his pride has not yet been strangled). Nothing listens to the hero: “Deaf. / The universe sleeps, / with its huge ear resting on its paw / with the pincers of the stars.”

IV. Teacher's final words

Violently conflicting with the world, the hero reveals his rebellious essence. The hero’s inconsistency, the combination in him of extreme “looseness” and extreme tenderness, aggravate the conflict. The inconsistency that tears apart the hero dooms him to tragic loneliness.

V. Workshop on the poem by V.V. Mayakovsky “Cloud in Pants”

1. Poet Nikolay Aseev wrote: “A Cloud in Pants” is a mocking title that replaced the original one, prohibited by censorship, and was the first experience of a large theme built on the opposition of existing routines, institutions, institutions to what is replacing them, what is felt in the air, felt in the verse - the future revolution."

Why, according to Aseev, is the title of the poem “Cloud in Pants” “mocking”?

What did Aseev mean by “experiment on a big topic”?

What is the “contrast with existing routines”? Give examples from the text.

2. V. Mayakovsky said in March 1930: “It (“Cloud in Pants”) began as a letter in 1913/14 and was first called “The Thirteenth Apostle.” When I came to the censorship with this work, they asked me: “What, do you want to go to hard labor?” I said that in no case, that this did not suit me in any way. Then they crossed out six pages for me, including the title. It's a question of where the title came from. I was asked how I could combine lyrics and great rudeness. Then I said: “Okay, if you want, I will be like crazy, if you want, I will be the most gentle, not a man, but a cloud in my pants.”

Why did the original title of the poem “The Thirteenth Apostle” evoke the idea of ​​hard labor among the censors?

What is the combination of “lyricism and great rudeness” in the poem “Cloud in Pants”? Give examples from the text.

What is the meaning of the new title of the poem? How does the poet himself explain it? Does the title “Cloud in Pants” reflect the character of the lyrical hero of the work?

3. “Poems and poems created in 1915.(“Clouds in Pants”, “Flute and Spine”), they said that a major humanist poet and soulful lyricist had come to literature. In the poem about love robbed by modern life (“Cloud in Pants”), the voice of the author himself resounds loudly, the facts of his biography acquire a high poetic generalization here...” (K. D. Muratova).

What are the “facts... biography” of V. Mayakovsky that can be recognized in his poem?

According to Muratova, in the poem “the voice of the author himself sounds loudly,” is this true? Justify your answer, give examples from the text.

4. K.D. Muratova writes about “Cloud in Pants”: “The poem is given great originality by its metaphorical richness; almost every line in it is metaphorical. An example of a materialized metaphor is the line “the fire of the heart” of the poet, which is extinguished by firefighters, or “sick nerves” that “thrash around in a desperate tap dance,” causing the plaster on the ground floor to collapse.”

What gives grounds to say that in the poem “almost every line is metaphorical”? Do you agree with the critic's statement?

What do you think is meant by the term “materialized metaphor”? Give examples of such metaphors in the text of the poem.

5. “One of the main features is visible in “The Cloud...” Mayakovsky's thinking: the ability for powerful associative condensations of themes, images, plots that are very far from each other. What do Severyanin, Bismarck and the “carcasses of the meadowsweet” have in common? And what do they have to do with the suffering rejected lover - the “thirteenth apostle”, now offering God to have “girls” in heaven, now threatening him with a knife? (S. Bovin).

What, according to Bovin, is the main feature of “Mayakovsky’s thinking”? Find examples of this type of thinking in the text.

The researcher poses certain questions to the reader regarding Mayakovsky's work. Try to answer them yourself. Are there any answers to them in the poem itself?

6. A.A. Mikhailov writes about “A Cloud in Pants”: “Blasphemy, aggressive language, street rudeness and deliberate anti-aestheticism reveal anarchic tendencies, the rebellious element of the poem. And although Mayakovsky, blaspheming, exalts a person, the elements overwhelm him: “Take your hands out of your trousers, you walkers, take a stone, a knife or a bomb...”

What does the critic say about the “anarchic tendencies” and the “rebellious element of the poem”? Do you agree with this?

How, in your opinion, does Mayakovsky “elevate man” by “blaspheming”? Give examples from the text.